September 1st, 2009: Seattle at New York

What is this I don't even


I'm having a lot of trouble trying to write these notes, just to be completely honest with you at the outset. The game sucked. My team sucked. I'm still seething at some of the dirty play and at the breathtaking incompetence of the officiating crew. I'm having a harder time than usual disengaging my seafoam-green soul from these notes, which is a major problem when the Storm are involved, because I know a lot of Storm fans. I'll do my best to write notes of the quality you've come to expect, but I'm really fucking pissed off right now.

It started off well, too. The Storm players, despite some time pressure, were all very obliging, working up and down the railings to try and make sure they didn't miss anyone. So was Nancy Darsch. So was Adia Barnes. I was really feeling good.

I may not like Sidney Spencer, but at least her taste in music is in the same ballpark as mine.

Then came a random, pointless rendition of "America the Beautiful". Imagine, if you will, that someone had found a young Fran Drescher, handed her a microphone, and told her to sing through her nose as loudly as possible, and furthermore that she should put her mouth as close to the microphone as she should. I have no idea who that girl's parents know, but a lot of money had to have changed hands for that to happen, seriously. The anthem was better, though it got a bit high-pitched at times. Both of them flubbed the words, though. Aaargh.

Sue Bird plays a very slick game. She and Tanisha Wright have a nice little drop pass thing going. Not a dropped pass, just a quick little drop and pick-up. She also seems to be more willing to throw her body into the fray- she stretched out for a full body dive a few times. Wright also showed some flashy moves. They weren't as successful as Lennox's were in the past, but she sliced through our defense like a hot knife through butter. Cash played a tenacious defensive game, but stylistically, Bill Laimbeer would have been proud of her. Camille Little threw her weight around. A lot. That ass of hers is a weapon of mass destruction. I'm surprised it doesn't have its own UN inspector. Janell Burse's jump shot is odd. I don't think she's confident enough that her shoulder will hold up to really commit to her shot. Also, it was rather frustrating and a bit kinky to have to keep yelling, "Janell, stop grabbing Janel's ass!"

Pee-Wee runs a good game, though she's a bit of a drama queen. Ashley Robinson made a very pretty cameo. Batkovic-Brown saw extended time as the reserve post. She's awkward-looking and has all the grace, charm, and tact of a bulldozer whose operator has fallen asleep at the wheel, but she gets the job done. Ashley Walker has very pretty hair, but she was a DNP-CD, so I can't talk about her game.

Has anyone seen Essence Carson? Or Shameka Christon? Or Loree Moore's basketball IQ on the offensive end of the floor? Essence was embarrassing, and that's on both sides of halfcourt; her defense was awful and her offense nonexistent. At least Shameka collected a few rebounds in between taking redonkulously long threes and missing them every which way but loose. Loree's clock management skills continue to be absent. I can't get on Janel too much, not after she got her bell rung hard enough that they brought out a bucket for her to barf in. Good times. Cathrine seemed to be the only one of our starters who wanted to win this game, and maybe that's just because she wanted to show Seattle what they could have had if New York hadn't matched the offer. Yeah, she had some bad passes and some dumb plays, but she was rebounding and the threes were mostly falling. I can't complain too much about that.

Ashley. What's wrong? I know specifically what was wrong tonight- she played with her heart and not her head, because by the end of the game I thought she was going to punch out the lights of the nearest Storm player. (Given that it was Wright, that might have been an interesting duel.) But she doesn't look right physically, either. She's always had an odd way of moving, but her lurch is starting to remind me of Frankenstein's monster. Mom's theory is that she's being overplayed (because we all know how Donovan loves her veterans) and that she's starting to wear down a little. Essence, come back from the land of the Pod People, we need you! Kia started slow, and was prey to the usual array of dumb mistakes, but at least she was going towards the basket and trying to make something happen, even if nothing was going to happen because Seattle would pretty much had to have been brandishing firearms for Courteau to call a foul. Leilani, stop hesitating or the nice lady in section 209 who sits in front of my mother is going to come down there and slap you silly. She looked like she was in over her head tonight (which isn't hard, since she is a cute little bunny), but Bird and Pee-Wee are not a PG matchup I wish on any young player. Tiffany was all right. Spencer had one great defensive play on her first sequence, and that was the end of her usefulness for the night. Dear Miss Spencer: STOP FAILING SO HARD. Your fail not only means we fuck up, but also means Shameka can't rest, which does not end well for us.

Clock management. Time management. OMG, you guys. The last two minutes of the game were such an epic clusterfuck that George Lucas is making a trilogy about it. They're called "Why the Fuck Are You Wasting Time with the Dribble?", "Down 4 in the Last Minute Is a Good Situation to Foul in", and "You're Putting Your Defensive Specialist in on Offense Why?" The prequel is "Shot Selection, Motherfuckers, Do You Know What It Is?" I swear to God, early in the game they were taking threes early in the clock like there was no tomorrow. Down to the last couple of minutes, suddenly they're looking for the perfect shot and working the ball around? Fffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

This is really the first game where Donovan's coaching has disappointed me.

However. All that being said. DIE IN A FIRE, JUNE COURTEAU. Or if you can't do that, at least meet me in a back alley with Ashley, Kia, and Erlana. I'd certainly be glad to give you a new reason to hate New York instead of the same beef you've been chewing on for eight years. I keep saying I've never seen such a badly-reffed game in my life, and then another one comes along. YOU GUYS THIS IS NOT A CONTEST. Call it both ways. If Loree hits someone with her ass, yes, that's a foul. But it should also be a foul when Camille Little hits someone with her ass. If it's a reach-in on Ashley, it's a reach-in on Pee-Wee. It's no wonder New York was scared shitless to go inside, especially after Janel came up looking like she was seeing triple. I know we're not the most aggressive team in the world, and that Seattle will go inside more, but does anyone honestly think that it would be 5-0 on personal fouls at 5:29 of the third quarter, putting the Storm in the bonus with more than half the quarter to play?

Again, if I'm not as rational or eloquent as usual, it's because I'm tired and cranky, but it's also because Maddie ate my head in the fourth quarter, while we were putting together a defensive stance of fail. In the end, I know we held our fate in our hands and threw it away like a kid with confetti. At the same time, I can't help but feel that the inconsistency and bias in the officiating helped fuck it up for us. I don't want to look back at a loss and say, "Yeah, but the refs." That's counter-productive at best. It masks the real problems.